Tag Archives for dorset button

Tried my luck yesterday in the small area in Field 5, between the two old roads, that I’ve been itching to get on for months. The farmer had told me that most of it had been fenced off and planted with saplings, which proved to be true. While I could have gone in the enclosure there wouldn’t have been much point as the grass, not being grazed by the sheep, was more than knee high. If it’s to be done at all it will have to be early in the spring before the grass begins to grow.

I detected in sweeps parallel to the aforementioned fence, making half a dozen passes and keeping a wary eye on the scudding banks of cloud rolling in from the north. Every so often one came on much blacker than the rest, gradually covering the whole sky and turning daylight into a sort of twilight. Then the hail would begin to fall, pelting down like a gauzy curtain moving across the fields. In four hours detecting I dodged as many of these storms and two normal but heavy rain showers, taking shelter under an overhanging tree and breaking out the flask of coffee while they passed.

In theory this should have been a productive spot but in practice was worryingly thin on finds. Not just on finds, but on signals generally. The only finds of the day were a button, a bullet and a copper alloy ring of a sort that is variously identified on metal detecting forums as Dorset buttons and belt rings. However a couple of similar rings I showed to the FLO last year came back identified as curtain rings of indeterminate medieval or early modern period, but dating from the period when many houses were internally divided by curtains rather than walls.